California Congressman Devin Nunes has accused Big tech firms of breaching anti-trust, civil rights and racketeering law by banning social media site Parler.
Nunes, the senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said Amazon, Apple and Google committed a "clear violation" of laws when they banned the 'free speech' social media platform popular with conservatives.
"There should be a racketeering investigation on all the people that coordinated this attack on not only a company, but on all of those like us," Nunes told Fox News on Sunday. "I have 3 million followers on Parler. Tonight I will no longer be able to communicate with those people and they’re Americans."
Tech giant Amazon shut down Parler just after midnight US Pacific time (08:00 GMT) when it evicted the site from its rented servers. Google and Apple had earlier blocked access to the Parler mobile phone app, although tech-savvy users were still able to download and install it after changing the security settings on their devices.
"The effect of this is that there is no longer a free and open social media company or site for any American to get on any longer," Nunes said. "Poof, it’s gone."
Amazon claimed Parler was "unable to effectively identify and remove content that encourages or incites violence against others," posing "a very real risk to public safety". Unlike Facebook and Twitter, Parler does not aggressively moderate users' posts according to a set of "community guidelines".
Unintended Consequences
On Friday Parler stormed to the number one spot on Apple's app store after Twitter deleted President Donald Trump's account — which had some 88 million followers — in the wake of last Wednesday's occupation of the US Capitol building in Washington DC by protesters attempting to disrupt the confirmation of Democratic candidate Joe Biden as president-elect by Congress.
Twitter shares tumbled by 12 per cent on the stock markets on Monday, losing $5 billion in value after Trump supporters left the site in droves. One pro-Trump 'channel' on Russian-founded messaging app Telegram had gained almost 44,000 subscribers by Monday afternoon, just two days after it was created.
Republicans and conservative media figures raised the alarm last week after tens of thousands of their Twitter followers mysteriously disappeared. House Democrats claimed those followers were "neo-Nazis", "insurrectionists" and "terrorists" who Twitter had purged. But left-wing British broadcaster and former MP George Galloway experienced the same phenomenon.
"Republicans have no way to communicate," Nunes said, "and it doesn’t even matter if you’re a Republican or conservative.”
Sunday's New York Post editorial declared: "Big Tech is a cartel, and must be regulated."
Blanket Ban
Parler CEO John Matze revealed on Sunday not only had the three tech leviathans united to shut down his company, but every firm providing services to the site had abandoned it.
“They made an attempt to not only kill the app, but to actually destroy the entire company," Matze said. "And it’s not just these three companies. Every vendor from text message services to email providers to our lawyers all ditched us too on the same day.”
Remaining Twitter users pointed out the power of Big Tech firms over the internet and would-be competitors:
— Big Prof. (@MightiJamie) January 10, 2021
— Ross Gardner (@MrmantleRoss) January 10, 2021
— That one guy (@RenamedAccount) January 10, 2021
Trump, who used Twitter broadcast his message directly to voters and supporters, had a longstanding feud with the big social media sites. He has repeatedly threatened to abolish their 'Section 230' protections against lawsuits over user-generated content as the so-called 'platforms' increasingly edit and censor posts — including his.
